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When Nickel Creek began as a bluegrass trio in 1989, its pre-teen members stunned audiences with their remarkable musical gifts. Since then, members Chris Thile, Sara Watkins and Sean Watkins have found success with Nickel Creek, their own solo ventures and for Thile with his new band Punch Brothers.

When they first visited eTown all the way back in 2000, they were 11 years into their career and Chris and Sara were still just 19 and Sean was just 23! When we were digging into our archives recently we came across their second visit in early 2006 and realized that we just had to share it with you all.

With a style and sound all their own, Sara, Sean Watkins and Chris weave new songs that sound traditional and have deep roots in the bluegrass genre. Plus Chris joins fellow mandolin vituroso Mike Marshall for a portion of the show as they strut their string stuff in a duo performance. The chemistry expands when host Nick Forster joins their formidable fingers on the strings!

And that’s not all! Nick sits down with eChievement award winner Maury Albertson. Maury is a civil engineer, and has traveled internationally as part of his work for over 60 years. He also is a co-founder of the Peace Corp, and networked extensively with the volunteers. Based on his experience and observation, he came to believe that poverty-stricken people of the world have the innate ability to bring themselves out of poverty and launched the non-profit Village Earth in 1993, along with co-founder Ed Shinn, Ph.D., to help these poor communities access financial and other resources to sustainably and self-reliantly develop.